COP27 Climate Conference: The change we need vs. the change we’ll get

Last November, government ministers at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) agreed to The Glasgow Climate Pact. It was both ambitious, in setting key targets for emissions reductions by 2030, and also heavily criticized, including by the Scientist Rebellion, for not going far enough. Critics noted that nations needed to reduce fossil-fuel dependencies faster, and prioritize degrowth, because even meeting 2030 goals would see global temperatures rising 2.4 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels by 2100. A crushing concession also came with China and India calling for “phas[ing] down” instead of “phas[ing] out” coal production.

The conference was further haunted by a broken promise by rich nations to secure $100 billion USD in annual contributions to global climate change efforts by 2020. But what was done was done, right? All we could aim for was a better political year ahead.

Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the ensuing cascade-failure of energy-grid and inflation-based crises. Yes, we also saw yet another record-breaking year for extreme climate events, and plenty of data illustrates that climate change is accelerating far above predictive models. The need to hold the world’s temperature under 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels remains clear. But has the will to change kept pace?

National governments face an unenviable set of pressures to respond to short term national hardships while tackling long term planetary devastation.

This year’s conference, COP27, has already gotten off to a complicated start. It’s not just that Rishi Sunak, the UK’s latest prime minister, flip-flopped on attending, and that the country missed its deadlines to pay $308.6 million in promised funding. Nor is it the fact that even the UN itself has expressed concern about Egyptian abuses of civil rights around this year’s event, held in Sharm el-Sheikh from November 6 to 18.

(Sunak promised to push for the release of jailed Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah, who on Sunday escalated his 200-day hunger strike by refusing water, but fulfillment of this pledge may come too late.)

And it’s not even the bleak figures released prior to COP27, including word of three greenhouse gases further exacerbating climate feedback loops, and a grim Emissions Gap Report, released with the argument that, at this juncture, “only an urgent system-wide transformation can deliver the enormous cuts needed to limit greenhouse gas emissions by 2030”. (We’re currently on track for an increase of 2.8 degrees by 2100.)

It’s also that the conference was delayed from the start by debate over putting “loss and damage” on the agenda. Although some have also called this conference the “African COP”, with high hopes of focusing this year on poorer nations suffering from climate impacts accelerated by richer countries, the sheer reluctance of many delegates to address this problem at all does not bode well. Richer countries are worried, of course, that they will be held financially responsible for future disasters like Pakistan’s record-breaking monsoon season, especially since the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has already estimated that developing countries need $2.5 trillion in external funding to meet 2030 goals under the 2015 Paris Agreement.

But this attitude reflects poorly on our readiness to see climate change as a truly global problem—one that never stops at specific borders, and which requires investment in less-costly prevention to mitigate future burdens (both financial, and eco-social).

Indeed, mitigation joins adaptation, finance, and collaboration as the main themes for COP27. Expectations include the development of a “mitigation work program” that would target key economic sectors (energy, transportation, agriculture), and ideally help to reduce global emissions by investing in the transition of everyday citizens to environmentally healthier economies. Also critical is the development of financial and international collaboration models that can weather the increase in trade shocks, food crises, and other forms of sudden societal instability tied in strong part to our changing climate.

Perhaps the most critical task for this conference, though, is the completion of last year’s unfinished business, along with a broader status report, or “global stocktake”, related to the 2015 Paris Agreement. The Glasgow Climate Pact requested renewed pledges from member countries. Some have submitted theirs already, including new commitments to be reviewed in sessions. Others still have to hash out their national promises at all.

And therein lies the greatest challenge for COP27, which should be evident to anyone when reading COP26’s Glasgow Climate Pact, or other documentation emerging from such conferences. Note the language in each clause. Note how much it relies on good faith actors and lacks robust mechanisms of international enforcement. Remember, too, how many governments have failed to meet their financial pledges and reduction targets to date.

And that was before Russia’s war in Ukraine. Early in proceedings, Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, asked delegates not to let wartime food and energy crises distract from the work this year. Still, national governments face an unenviable set of pressures to respond to short term national hardships while tackling long term planetary devastation.

Yes, there has been some progress, too. This year, Australia adopted more aggressive targets for net-zero emissions by 2050, and the US recently passed an Inflation Reduction Act that, while not going far enough with its 40 percent reduction target, was nevertheless ambitious within a fraught political climate. Likewise, the green democracy wave in South America, which most recently included Brazil’s return to a leader with a proven track record of halting deforestation, offers some hope of seeing experiments in socioeconomic degrowth on a country-wide and even regional scale.

But we have not yet done enough, so whatever the delegates put to paper this year will be just that—words on a page—without ongoing civic engagement that extends well beyond the two-week conference. We cannot afford to let politicians wrap themselves up in procedure here. The viability of our natural ecosystem, much like the viability of our democracies, requires no less than sustained, on-the-ground investment from us all.